


Just Another Word

by amyfortuna



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Implied/Referenced Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 07:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/pseuds/amyfortuna
Summary: Aerin survives the burning of the hall, and is, at last, free.





	

**Author's Note:**

> B2MEM prompt, Red Path, 'Freedom'. 
> 
> The title is from the saying, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

Fire licked the red roof. Aerin stumbled blindly from the burning building into the bright winter sunlight. Her clothes were smoking. She dropped to the cold ground, rolling over and over until there were no more sparks on her garments, nothing but dark patches to show where fire had caught at them as she fled the hall. 

Her husband and his men did not follow. They had been deep in their cups, drugged and drowsy. The serving girls she'd ushered out the back way, through the kitchens, not five minutes before she set the blaze, using some of her own chopped-off hair for kindling. A kitchen knife to Brodda's breast when he tried to stand had put paid to his attempts to escape. She'd never felt so alive as in those few moments when she shoved it in, except for those stolen, bright, moments with Morwen, which now seemed a lifetime ago. 

Shivering in her wet, burnt garments, Aerin rose from the damp earth, lifting her head. The day was bright, but it would soon fade, and she was in danger. Stumbling in her haste, she fled for the only refuge she knew -- a crumbling house about a mile away, where once she spent the only happy times she had. 

Inside, the house was very dusty and cold. She bent, knees creaking, to set a fire in the hearth, using some of the wood next to the fireplace, and again, hair from her own head for kindling. That hair, once golden and thick, was faded to white, had fallen out until it was limp and sparse. It was so short now that she could not braid it. 

She wandered through the rooms. There, Morwen's favoured chair, never chopped up for kindling no matter how cold they were. Húrin made it for her, carved it out of oak early in their married days, so she could hold their children when they woke at night. Here, Nienor's doll, and Lalaith's before her, also carved by Húrin. Once, Aerin had chopped some of her own hair off to put on the doll, rather than to kindle fires. And there, Morwen's bed. 

She was not so old that the hot blood could not rise to her cheeks as she looked at the abandoned bed, and sweet memories filled her mind. Morwen's tender laughter in an unguarded moment of happiness, when she unbent from her stern demeanour and was startled into delight and pleasure. Her own hands, younger then, caressing, gathering, enfolding her lover, drawing her down to rest with their heads on the same pillow. The candlelight on Morwen's fair face shone golden, and Aerin in that moment felt free for a time of her cruel bondage, of the darkness that awaited her in her husband's house. 

Aerin walked over to the bed and straightened the quilt out carefully, her hands old and wrinkled now. Freedom, finally gained, felt hollow without the woman she loved by her side. 

She pressed her lips to the cold pillow where once their heads had lain together, then turned, and made her way from the room, from the house, gathering the few things she might need on her long journey. She might never make it to the other side of the mountains, it was true, but now at last she was free: she had nothing left to lose.


End file.
